Association of Health Conditions and Health Service Utilization With Intimate Partner Violence Identified via Routine Screening Among Middle-Aged and Older Women

Abstract

IMPORTANCE The US Preventive Services Task Force recently determined that there is insufficient evidence to recommend routine screening for intimate partner violence (IPV) in women who are middle-aged and older. Certain Veterans Health Administration (VHA) clinics have been routinely screening women of all ages for IPV since 2014. OBJECTIVES To examine the proportion of women older than childbearing age (ie, Ն45 years) who have positive results when routinely screened for past-year IPV at VHA clinics and to evaluate the associations of a positive screening result with health conditions and health service utilization. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS This cohort study included 4481 women aged 45 years and older who were screened for past-year IPV in 13 VHA outpatient clinics in 11 states between April 2014 and April 2016. Data analysis was conducted from March 2019 to August 2019. EXPOSURE Positive screening result for past-year IPV. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Mental and physical health conditions (identified using International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Edition [ICD-9] and ICD-10 codes from VHA medical record data) and VHA health services utilization (identified using inpatient and outpatient VHA encounter data) in the 20 months after screening. RESULTS In this study, 2937 of 4481 women (65.5%) were middle-aged (ie, aged 45 to 59 years), and 1544 (34.5%) were older (ie, aged Ն60 years), with 1955 (43.6%) black participants. A total of 255 middle-aged women (8.7%; mean [SD] age, 51 [4] years) and 79 older women (5.1%; mean [SD] age, 64 [5] years) screened positive for past-year IPV. In adjusted logistic regression models among middle-aged women, screening positive for IPV was associated with subsequent diagnoses of anxiety

Mental Health, Sense of Coherence, and Interpersonal Violence during the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown in Germany

“…Our results further indicate that participants with pre-existing mental conditions show more depression and anxiety, less well-being, less sense of coherence, and worse coping skills in terms of the pandemic and the measures taken. Most importantly and also most concerning is the finding of a one-month prevalence of 5% IPV, which is already close to one-year prevalence rates [ 29 ] and for which there were indices that this has currently increased. Both women and men experienced more anger and aggression.…”

The German COVID-19 Survey on Mental Health: Primary Results

“…Although the cohort reflects a relatively well educated and financially secure sample, there is evidence of substantial mental burden with increased levels of stress, anxiety, depressive symptoms, sleep disturbance and irritability. Most importantly and also most concerning is the finding of a one-month prevalence of 5% IPV, which is already close to one-year prevalence rates 5 and for which there were indices that this has currently increased. We think it is of vital importance to continuously monitor the mental health of the general public during this pandemic and its aftermath and to carefully screen for IPV and its risk factors such as stress, sleep problems and anger.…”

Effects of violence against women on health during menopause: a systematic review and metanalysis

“…The literature search strategy identified 194 articles, of which 117 were excluded at various stages of the search, eventually producing a final selection of 19 articles (Fig. 1), five of which were related to menopausal symptoms [10][11][12][13][14], two related to genitourinary symptoms [15,16], five studies on psychological health or physical conditions [17][18][19][20][21] three on sexual health [22][23][24], and four on cardiovascular or metabolic problems [25][26][27][28]. Nine studies were crosssectional studies [12-17, 19, 22, 23] and ten were cohort studies [10,11,18,20,21,[24][25][26][27][28]; two Brazilian [11,22], two Australian [17,24] and the rest from USA.…”

“…1), five of which were related to menopausal symptoms [10][11][12][13][14], two related to genitourinary symptoms [15,16], five studies on psychological health or physical conditions [17][18][19][20][21] three on sexual health [22][23][24], and four on cardiovascular or metabolic problems [25][26][27][28]. Nine studies were crosssectional studies [12-17, 19, 22, 23] and ten were cohort studies [10,11,18,20,21,[24][25][26][27][28]; two Brazilian [11,22], two Australian [17,24] and the rest from USA. For the analysis, all forms of psychological, physical, or sexual mistreatment or abuse were combined into a single category of VAW.…”

“…Table 1 (Ref. [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]) displays a summary of the main characteristics of the selected studies (study design, population, intervention, objective, and main results). The participants' mean age or age range was reported in all articles, but not the time since the violence episode, which was described in only one study [11].…”